The exceptional Saturnine ordering of the clothing and accessories closet of Bernie Madoff suggests he’d be an ace at accounting. Based on Diana B. Henriques’ book, Barry Levinson’s television film “The Wizard of Lies” demonstrates early on that Madoff – responsible for bilking trusting investors out of tens of billions of dollars in his Ponzi […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘The Americans’ and the Lotus (2017)
April 5, 2017 by
Like “The Americans”’ Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys), the lotus is not what it seems. The flower – an Eastern representation of the female, specifically her genitalia – is externally magnificent, with no clue that it grows in the mud, anchored by earth. The title of Season 5’s “Lotus 1-2-3” refers to the […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘The Night Of,’ the Feet and Neptune (2016)
August 29, 2016 by
Feet often slip. They and whatever coverings shield them don’t always take people where they want to go. Typically because the wearer doesn’t have a good sense of the direction in which they’re headed. This pretty much describes the eight-part drama “The Night Of” – it could easily have been called “Feets, Don’t Fail Me […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Fargo’: Sioux Falls, Jung and the Flying Saucer (2015)
December 9, 2015 by
In “The Castle,” “Fargo”’s Season 2’s penultimate episode, Hank (Ted Danson) tells a local cop, who has legal jurisdiction but poor strategy, an anecdote. The story centers on a feisty lieutenant who, during the war, criticized their commanding officer, General Eisenhower, for his Very Bad Plan. Hank does not succeed at making this same point […]
Archetypes: Television: ‘Hannibal,’ the Stag and the Artemis Thing (2015)
September 1, 2015 by
Motown released one of Smokey Robinson’s slyest songs, “The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game,” recorded by the Marvelettes, in late December 1966. And if Bryan Fuller, creator of the equally sly, just-ended series “Hannibal,” had listened to this ditty for inspiration for the entirety of show’s three seasons, it shows. The song is a […]
Archetypes: Television: ‘True Detective 2 Season Finale’: Greek Tragedy and the Ani-Antigone Thing
August 10, 2015 by
Hardly anyone will argue about the density and lack of clarity in plotting and dialog throughout “True Detective”’s second season. The thing did have a most distinctive “pop,” though, which emanated from an unlikely source: its Greekness. In fact, there was so much Greece – the birthplace of tragedy – that Season 2 could easily […]
Archetypes: Television: ‘True Detective 2’: The Three-Legged Chair Theory
July 31, 2015 by
With two episodes to go, the second season of “True Detective” could use some love. Viewers can’t seem to get season one’s dyad of Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Marty Hart (Woody Harrelson) out of their heads. Two oddballs – Cohle and Hart fit that bill extraordinarily well – are much easier to stack up […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Penny Dreadful’: ‘Take That, Dollface.’
July 6, 2015 by
“Penny Dreadful”’s Victorian-era, English demon-huntress Vanessa Ives (Eva Green) was never big on dolls. During the show’s second season, she confessed she’d played with them as a child – because if you didn’t you were considered a deviant – but never liked them. “Those eyes, staring at you, just waiting to come to life,” she […]
Archetypes: Television: ‘Aquarius’ Gets Its Neptune On
May 29, 2015 by
It’s a cosmic no-no to mount a television program set during the Summer of Love, in 1967, without a generous dose of atmosphere. In the case of the new drama, “Aquarius,” that backdrop is courtesy of generational Neptune in Libra. The combo’s vibe – Neptunian idealization of Libra’s ruler Venus – is iconic and expansive: […]
Archetypes: Television: Review: ‘Mad Men’ Series Finale (2015): Priest, Penance, Confessor, Confessee
May 18, 2015 by
The core of “Mad Men” has always been religious: Advertising man Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm) original sin, akin to Adam and Eve’s act of disobedience, involved his stealing the identity of another man. Neptunian themes of deceit and fuzzy identity merged with other ways to “Neptune out” – through drugs, alcohol, sex, as well as […]
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